Railfanning Cordele, GA Saturday, January 9, 2016: Tier IV units, NARCOA Excursion, and more. скачать в хорошем качестве

Railfanning Cordele, GA Saturday, January 9, 2016: Tier IV units, NARCOA Excursion, and more.

Hello everyone! On January 9, 2016, Blane (georgiacentralfan) drove over from Vidalia and met me at my house for a few hours of railfanning. We saw a lot of interesting trains, from high speed intermodals, MOW trains, NARCOA Excursions, and more! Enjoy and thanks for watching! 1:00 The first train of the day was seen in Cordele. Blane and I didn't have time to get set up when we reached the diamonds, and when we heard and saw what it was, we decided to get out of there and head south to the next possible shot, which is about 12 rail miles from Cordele Interlocking, and about 14 road miles. If you're lucky, you can just beat the train to the crossing, which is demonstrated here as I jumped out of the truck and caught him coming through Bowen Rd. at the south end of Hatley Siding. 1:55 The next train we see is Q133, making all of 70 miles an hour past my camera at Bowen Rd. As a side note, this was my first Tier IV unit, and I was glad to see it leading and making good time across the Georgia hills. 3:27 Our third and final southbound at Bowen Rd., we see Q101 also making 70 mph on the main about to hit the switch just around the curve behind us. 5:12 After that, we figured that we would go a few miles north and shoot at the north end of Hatley Siding, which I thought still had old Atlantic Coast Line US&S Searchlights. After sliding around on some wet and muddy dirt roads, we finally arrived at the north end of the siding. Much to my disappointment, they were Safetran "Darth Vader" signals. But, there was an approach signal - there's a meet about to take place. We waited for almost 90 minutes, no train. We heard a horn off in the distance, but he was headed north. Q542 rounded the curve off in the distance and came to a stop in the siding. 5 minutes later, we saw a headlight off in the distance to the north on this straight track. Here came Q551, which to our surprise had 3 SD50 variants, two SD50-3's in YN3 and a freshly repainted SD50-2 in YN4/YN3B paint. 8:07 As soon as Q551 cleared the siding, the points moved and Q542 whistled off and started to move. Nothing spectacular in the power, save for the SD50-2, but what was in the consist was surprising. There was a B&O covered hopper still with the capitol dome logo on it. It had been patched, but the logo was still quite legible. 12:23 Blane and I headed north to Cordele and checked out the progress on the expansion at the Cordele Intermodal Port, who are building a a new siding and a new connection to CSX. The scanner crackled and we heard CSX Q025 clear the siding to the main at the south end of Cordele Siding - Not but 1000 yards away but the road was closed off and torn up. We put the pedal to the medal and just barely made it to Cape Rd. where we see them increase speed as they get out of town. Blane and I then had lunch and we went back to the house to get some supplies when we heard a horn on NS. We tried to make it to the crossing but it beat us there. NS 152 was making good time and had an ex Union Pacific SD9043MAC second out. We tried to beat it to Cordele but it made it there before us. 14:52 I had prior knowledge of the NARCOA excursion since I was a member, and I had intentions of chasing them at least a little of the way back from Cordele. I took stills of them crossing the Gum Creek Slough of Lake Blackshear, then ran across the lake into Sumter County to catch them rounding the curve off of the causeway and trestle across the lake. 17:25 We see the excursion pass the SAL Depot in Desoto, GA, now long abandoned. Brett with that K5LA sounded really nice in the crisp air. My camera cut out halfway through, and it started to rain, so we called it quits there. 18:48 We had just gotten back to the house when we heard a horn on NS, so we ran back to the crossing to catch 330 coming into Cordele. 21:50 Blane and I tried to chase a southbound NS intermodal train with leaser power, but we went 20 miles and all we saw were red signals, so we gave up. Then, the scanner revealed that there were two northbound CSX trains about to go to Cordele, so we hightailed it to the diamonds where we saw the first train, which was a surprise! An empty CSX rail train, with an SD70MAC, a SD40-3, and a GEVO, and all of the cars had Chessie System logos and writing on them. 23:53 Next we see Q026 come north and bang across the diamonds. 30:00 About 15 minutes after that, we see NS 291 come into Cordele with a Horsehead painted standard cab Dash 8, with a Leslie Horn! For some reason, the engineer hardly blew through Cordele, which has upwards of 15-20 crossings. 33:18 Our final train of the night, we see NS 285 with an ex Conrail SD60I also with a Leslie horn. Thanks for watching!